Gloves having abrasive material thereon are not in and of themselves new, but each glove which has appeared on the market, for one reason or the other, has not been satisfactory for both use by the housewife to peel potatoes, carrots and the like, and for heavier duty uses such as abrading paint, scouring pans and the like, while permitting complete flexibility of the glove. Representative of the prior art devices is the glove disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,459,985 issued Jan. 25, 1949 to C. H. Woodbury for HAND COVERING. The Woodbury device shows a glove in which the entire finger, palm and substantially the entire thumb portion of the glove is covered by an abrasive material which while effective to abrade certain objects results in a very stiff unwieldy, non-flexible glove and is unsatisfactory for handling smaller items such as carrots, potatoes and the like.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,050,738 issued Aug. 28, 1962 to A. W. Rytina for GLOVE, discloses a glove in which the glove fabric is fabricated from a mixture of plastisol and elastomer flock dispersed therein. The flock disclosed in the Rytina patent is insufficiently hard and sharp for use in heavy duty jobs such as scouring pots, pans and abrading paint. The Rytina glove like the Woodbury glove is clumsy and relatively inflexible. U.S. Pat. No. 3,643,386 issued Feb. 22, 1972 to Grzyll for ABRASIVE HAND APPAREL, discloses a glove in which insufficient areas are covered with an abrasive material which is insufficiently hard and sharp to accommodate all of the jobs necessary in the device of the present invention. The Grzyll patent also discloses a mitten having the abrasive material over substantially the entire working surface, resulting in a cumbersome, non-flexible device much like the Rytina and Woodbury gloves.
In order to obviate all of the short comings of the prior art and to provide a glove which is flexible, thereby allowing the user to handle small items such as potatoes, carrots and other small vegetables, while at the same time being capable of the most heavy duty abrading uses, a glove has been constructed in which individual discrete abrading units are provided and spaced to enable the entire glove including thumb, palm and finger stall portions to be flexible.